Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Here's something I just unexpectedly ran across while looking through inter-war newspaper articles for references to Oswald Spengler: a recounting of a lecture at the Edinburgh City Business Club by Mr. R. H. Munro on the topic of fashion.

Mr Munro was dealing principally with the ever-changing fashions in women's wear. Married men profess to deplore these changes, but no man likes to see his wife fall behind in the parade. It is true that a woman who remains old-fashioned long enough may find herself again in the fashion, for as Beaumont and Fletcher observed in the Elizabethan age, "We know that what was worn some twenty years ago comes into grace again." In somewhat less that twenty years we have witnessed our womenfolk abandoning their crowning glory only to grow it again, and shortening their skirts only to lengthen them again. Yet history never repeats itself in exact detail. Women's infinite variety is never staled by custom, for custom never gets a chance. "The Dictates of Fashion," The Scotsman, 8 May 1935, p. 12.

The Spengler reference (in case you're interested in these kinds of things) derives from his concept of "Dionysian Man", which Mr Munro uses as a description of a feature particular -- in his view -- to Western civilisation: the type of person "in a state of continual movement from one idea to another", who is "constantly on the quest for visions to guide him along untravelled roads".

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Not least for the H. P. Lovecraft reference, I pretty much adore this passage from Charlie Brooker's latest column (which is actually about the Sun):

It's hard to cheer when a newspaper closes. Even one you're slightly scared of, like the Daily Mail.
Even though the Mail isn't technically a newspaper, more a serialised
Necronomicon. In fact it's not even printed, but scorched on to
parchment by a whispering cacodemon. The Mail can never close. It can
only choose to vacate our realm and return to the dominion in which it
was forged; a place somewhere between shadow and dusk, beyond time and
space, at the dark, howling apex of infinity.

It's just a newspaper. It's just a newspaper. (Repeat 100 times a day.)

At the time, Russian authorities in Barnaul declared the protest "an unsanctioned public event".
Now a petition to hold another protest featuring 100 Kinder Surprise toys,
100 Lego people, 20 model soldiers, 15 soft toys and 10 toy cars has
been rejected because the toys have been deemed not to be "citizens of
Russia".

Well, it's hard to disagree with that logic.

I guess.

I sure am glad that a significant portion of our energy supplies come from this country....

Just another example of that horrible, nasty, 'militant' secularism at work: the discussion of a poll commissioned by Richard Dawkins's Foundation to explore the social attitudes of British Christians.

Example:

[O]ur findings show that the majority of UK Christians share the
secular, liberal, humane values that are the hallmark of a modern,
decent society.

This won't come as a surprise to most Christians reading these
results, I suspect, nor to those of us who count liberal Christians
among our friends, families and colleagues.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

My fear today is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies. We see it in any number of things: when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; when states won’t fund faith schools; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere.

Not only is this secularisation 'militant' it is even reminiscent of 'totalitarian regimes':

For me, one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities.
That’s why in the 20th century, one of the first acts of totalitarian regimes was the targeting of organised religion.

So worried is our Baroness, in fact, that she will be conveying this message to the Pope today via the ministerial delegation she is leading to the Vatican, a place famous for centuries a bastion of reason, tolerance and the acceptance of 'multiple identities'. (Cough, cough...)

As Ophelia says elsewhere, 'oh vomit', and there is much purgative pleasure to be found in the Baroness's missive (if you're into that sort of thing), which is eagerly echoed by the usual suspects at the Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

(And probably elsewhere. You know, for such a sadly marginalised social group, religious people seem to have no shortage of large-circulation platforms from which to bewail their marginality.)

I'm too weary of these kinds of comments to go through it line by line (say with regard to the typical canards that 'signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings', or that totalitarianism and 'religious identities' have somehow been mutually incompatible), though no doubt others will do me the favour.

However, a couple of things immediately jumped out.

Like this:

I will be arguing that to create a more just society, people need to feel
stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds.
In practice this means individuals not diluting their faiths and nations not
denying their religious heritages.

At a time when (just to pick a few examples) a good third or more of young British Muslims believe apostates from their faith should be punished by death, when leading American presidential candidates have no problem placing the authority of the Bible over that of the constitution and when ultra-orthodox Jewish religious fanatics can use terror and violence to enforce a radical form of patriarchy, it would seem that there is no great shortage of people who feel pretty 'confident in their creeds'.

Methinks the Baroness might be missing something here.

(And is it just me or is there something a bit sinister about the good Baroness's reference to people 'not diluting their faiths', especially given some of her co-religionists' touchiness on precisely this issue.)

But, for me anyway, an immediate, sure-fire dead give-away of the problem popped up with the phrase 'militant secularism'.

Militant secularism.

I pointed this out before (five years ago! I've been at this too long), in a response to a complaint about 'militant atheism', one directed at authors such as Richard Dawkins.

I concluded:

Until the day that Richard Dawkins appears on television standing in
front of a poster of Darwin while holding an AK-47 and screaming for the
murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, can we find a different,
perhaps more appropriate adjective to describe his approach?

It would seem to me that this still stands.

Our weapon is reason, reason and sarcasm. Our two weapons...

[UPDATE] The juxtaposition on the front page of the Telegraph is classic (and useful in case you need to identify one of those 'militant secularists'. No, wait...). (Informed via Chris B, image via here)

Simon Winder's review of Philip Olterman's new book Keeping Up With the Germans: A History of Anglo-German Encounters is worth reading for at least two reasons.

First, it neatly encapsulates something about Germanness:

Everything that makes modern Germany so appealing – a sort of wryness mixed with tentative enthusiasm, a wish to be liked tempered by a genuine concern to engage with a terrible past – are all in this book.

Second, it notes Anglo-German connections that are somehow simultaneously unexpected and inevitable:

A long, excellent analysis of the Baader-Meinhof Gang is almost over before the reader realises that the only real Anglo-German element in the chapter is that Astrid Proll, hiding in London, once went to a concert by the Clash where the band were wearing Baader-Meinhof T-shirts.

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Via the wonders of social networking I have been informed of an event that I would definitely be attending were I in London tonight: the first screening of the short film 'Fits and Starts of Restlessness' by Tim Shore and Gary Thomas, made in collaboration with our friend, Dr. Heather Shore of Leeds Metropolitan University.

It will be shown with other short films at the BFI (Tuesday, 7 February 2012, NFT 1, at BFI Southbank, seems to be starting at 18:20) as part of the celebrations around Dickens's 200th birthday...which is, in fact, today.

The title is taken from Dickens’ essay Night Walks, and his description
of London has having “expiring fits and starts of restlessness”. The
film takes its own night ‘walk’ and traces the path of the lost Fleet
River, through the night time streets of Saffron Hill – once the site of
a notorious rookery – and where Dickens located Fagin’s den in Oliver
Twist.

I haven't seen it yet, but the stills that are available are, I must say, very intriguing.

And since part of the research was related to Heather's excellent book Artful Dodgers: Youth and Crime in Early Nineteenth-Century London, I'm sure the style is matched with substance.

Now that the Olympic Games are in full swing the question has arisen as to whether these physical contests are harmful to women. The question as to whether they are harmful to men, too, also arises—though it is apt to be overlooked.

Both questions can be answered in a definite manner.

That excessively violent exercise and maintained effort, such as is exhibited in athletic contests in general and the Olympic Games in particular, is most detrimental to human health is a well-recognised fact in medicine.

REMARKABLE EXPERIMENTS

But the general public, if they realise at all that over-exertion is damaging, certainly do not realise how remarkably injurious it can be.

For it is not inconceivable that a person who persistently overstrained his or her body over a certain period of time might eventually become not only a physical wreck, but also a mental defective.

Outside the circle of those with medical knowledge there are but few who have heard of the interesting experiments in this line conducted by that famous surgeon, Dr. George Crile, of Cleveland, Ohio.

These experiments have proved that excessive physical strain, like severe mental shock, results in a destruction of brain cells—the number of cells destroyed being in proportion to the violence of the exercise or shock.

Moreover, these cells once lost are not replaced. Dr. Crile experimented with all kinds of animals. He raced them into states of exhaustion and subsequently examined their brains. In each case he found that cells had been destroyed in enormous numbers.

WOMEN SUFFER MORE

...
This [the destruction of brain cells] applies equally to men and women, but that women must suffer more is obvious when one considers her distinct physical disadvantages as compared with man. For much of her strength has to be sacrificed to meet her special requirements of reproduction for which she pays a monthly mortgage.

Apart from the fact that the fact that woman is ‘the weaker vessel,’ however, and consequently more easily exhausted than man, there is little reason why violent exercise should harm her any more than it does the stronger sex.

But it must not be forgotten that it does harm the stronger sex. ...

NERVOUS STRAIN

Exercise in moderation is beneficial even essential to the well-being of both sexes, but care must be taken not to overdo it. These international contests are, in the opinion of some medical men, pure folly when they are carried to such a pitch of exhaustion as would appear to be not infrequently the case.

Not only do they impose physical strain, but also mental strain, for nervousness is present in practically every competitor prior to a race and is so great in some cases that some, if they fail to obtain the success they hoped for, break down and become hysterical.

One woman competitor was so affected in the Olympic Games the other day.

It is common knowledge, too, that athletes depreciate physically earlier in life than persons leading a normal existence.
...

MODERATION WANTED

Just as excessive physical strain destroys brain cells so will mental shock and persistent mental worry lead to their destruction.

It is a fact that illness, and even death, often follows mental worry because a number of brain cells have been lost and the person affected is consequently not in a fit state to combat disease.

Similarly ‘shell shock’ is due to the destruction of brain cells. ....

If a man or woman will observe moderation in all things—exercise, feeding, etc.—then he or she will be on the path to really good health.

But lack of an essential is as bad as an excess of it. Thus people should not starve themselves, or refrain from taking any exercise, but should take sufficient to meet the requirements of their various occupations and habits. Too little is as bad as too much.

I'm not familiar with the writings of Clyde Prestowitz, but I found at least three things to like about his recent comments at Foreign Policy on the World Economic Forum in Davos ('Clueless in Davos').

First: he uses the word 'glitteratus', and I've rather a soft spot for the underachiving singular forms of words that are almost always used in the plural (e.g. 'graffito').

Second: he makes reference to the 'gnomes of Zurich', a nickname for Swiss bankers that I first encountered as a teenager while playing Illuminati and which has since stuck in my mind, though I have the feeling it's been largely forgotten. What I never knew (and was inspired by this reference to discover) was that the phrase apparently originated via discussions among British Labour politicians in the 1960s.

Third: he has a rather jaundiced view of the Davos lifestyle, one that jibes well with our own personal experience of the town at the beginning of last month.

Yet, despite his anti-charisma, [WEF organiser Klaus] Schwab has managed to persuade a large number of the world's top CEOs, politicians, academics, media stars, and bureaucrats that they have to be in a cramped, second rate hotel in a cold Swiss village with mediocre skiing and food every year during the bridge weekend between January and February.

Though I imagine that the kind of 'cramped, second rate hotel' being shared by most of these Davos men and women -- however cramped and second rate -- is in a different class than ours was. (Where the ambience was more 'sleepless in Davos' than 'clueless in Davos'.)

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